Dave Watson, former owner of Kind Care Medical Marijuana Dispensary, still has a safe and surveillance equipment he bought for the dispensary. / V. Richard Haro/The Coloradoan

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Medical marijuana in Fort Collins has moved from storefronts to shadows.

The city’s 21 dispensaries, along with many of their advocates, are gone a year after voters approved a ban.

A banner for Kind Care of Colorado, formerly located at 6617 S. College Ave., is rolled up, collecting dust in storage along with thousands of dollars worth of security cameras, equipment and furniture. Dave Watson, 42, the store’s former owner, said people are finding marijuana underground, like they did before the stores opened.

Marijuana-related crime statistics haven’t changed noticeably since the dispensaries were closed Feb. 14. Law enforcers say the dispensary robberies have ended and the lack of visibility is better for schoolchildren. Medical-marijuana advocates say it’s more dangerous now for patients who no longer have the same access to quality-monitored products.

Larimer County’s state-approved medical-marijuana users have declined from 8,500 in mid-2011 to fewer than 5,000 as annual registrations have lapsed. In January 2009, there were 530.

“To me, it really drives home that the supply had a lot to do with the demand that we saw,” said Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith, who campaigned to close dispensaries and opposes both marijuana ballot items in November. “If you had more pot shops than you had Starbucks, it sends a message.”

Fort Collins police Capt. Don Vagge said he dosen’t think closing dispensaries had as much to do with the recent decrease in registered users as heightened state regulations. He said police continue to bust illicit grow operations in all types of neighborhoods, but there is at least one noticeable difference since February.

“The atmosphere of marijuana’s permissibility was much more visible,” he said. “With dispensaries not being in business, medical marijuana or the use of marijuana is not as flagrant or open.”

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Another shot for medical pot

Voters have another chance to decide on Fort Collins medical marijuana dispensaries a month from today.

Question 301 is aimed at bringing dispensaries back with a limit of one for every 500 patients. While last year’s buzz drew National Geographic camera crews and robust public discussion, the ballot issue this year isn’t as prominent.

“When we were trying to find volunteers, a lot had moved or left town because it left a bad taste in their mouth,” said Kirk Scramstad, a former dispensary owner who’s leading the charge to repeal the ban with Yes on 301. “Our numbers are drastically down. It’s just a handful of us that meet once or a couple times per week.”

The proposed repeal of the ban would still prohibit dispensaries within 1,000 feet of a school or a playground and within 500 feet of a church, child-care center or recreation site. And they would be subject to state regulations requiring digital surveillance and tracking of the product.

Scramstad said he was “pleasantly surprised” by how many local residents supported the petition to get on the ballot. But the prospects for medical-marijuana entrepreneurs are tainted by the possibility of yet another petition the next year.

“There’s no laid-out path in front of you in this industry,” Scramstad said.

Watson is optimistic. He’s keeping his equipment in storage and picking up odd jobs such as motorcycle repair work while hoping to get back in business.

“I’m not intimidated at all about getting closed down again,” he said. “I think there’s a group of people opposed to it. I don’t think the majority of people are opposed to it at all.”

Coloradans in 2000 approved a constitutional amendment allowing medical marijuana through physicians’ recommendations for a number of diseases and conditions including cancer, AIDS, muscle spasms and severe pain, among others. Some law enforcers have said young, healthy people are exploiting the law for recreational drug use.

In recent years, the state created a strict set of regulations for stores dispensing marijuana, and communities including Fort Collins, Loveland and Windsor have voted to ban the stores.

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Treatment

“Let’s bring it back to what the voters, in my belief, thought they were voting for,” Riedel said, adding that treatment for cancer patients and the nausea that goes with chemotherapy is acceptable. “If medical marijuana will help that person, I have no problem with that.”

He opposes Question 301. He said he continues to see in court white men between ages 20 and 35, absent apparent debilitating conditions, who use medical marijuana.

“It’s my belief that Fort Collins is better off without those dispensaries,” Riedel said. “I did not think it was an attractive thing to drive through the city of Fort Collins and see dispensary after dispensary.”

Watson said he helped people with a variety of disabilities but that that as a dispensary owner, his work didn’t involve deciding who receives a medical-marijuana card.

“If a young kid did come in who looked perfectly young and healthy, who am I to question the doctor’s verification?” he said. “Everyone’s got a reason why they need (medical marijuana).”

Watson said people frequently thanked him for providing safe access to quality medical marijuana. And he doesn’t see how the benefits of closing the stores justify taking that away.

“The people that need marijuana are going to find it,” he said. “It might have weeded out some small-time recreational users, but the people that really need it, they’re getting it somewhere — whether it’s under a bridge or on a street corner. You can’t tell me that’s a better deal than having it regulated.”

Complexity, caregivers

A number of growers have transitioned into a caregiver model, often a home-based operation, that has fewer regulations but a low limit for the number of marijuana plants.

Watson’s dispensary had served as many as 3,000. He still grows medical marijuana as a small-scale caregiver, providing for the legal limit of five patients.

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Denver-based defense attorney Sean McAllister said he’s had multiple clients in the Fort Collins area get charged with felonies for misunderstanding the laws regarding caregivers.

“There are a lot of people out there that have been listed by more than five (patients) that are operating under the assumption that they’re legal,” he said.

Patients list their caregiver through the state, and there’s no mechanism to track whether a caregiver has reached the maximum number of patients allowed. This is one of several concerns, he said.

“There’s a lack of clarity about when a plant is a plant... It is an unregulated mess with the caregiver system,” McAllister said.

Sheriff Smith said his office, similar to when before dispensaries were shut down, continues to find grow operations ostensibly operating as caregivers. But it’s seldom they’re legitimate, he said.

Illicit drugs such as psychedelic mushrooms, schedule II painkillers and firearms have been found in raids.

“In our experience, it doesn’t separate out between medical and illicit marijuana,” he said, adding that lately people have been moving here to grow marijuana and sell it out of state for nearly double the price.

Legalization

Meanwhile, voters statewide in November have a choice through Amendment 64 on whether to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes for anyone 21 and older. That would lead to recreational dispensaries similar to but separate from medical stores.

Similar lines have been drawn locally with that issue. Law enforcement opposes it, and medical-marijuana advocates generally support it.

Grow operations continue to be discovered by law enforcement, and more will be busted. Smith said his investigators have a list of 19 locations they’ve targeted but haven’t had time to obtain warrants for, in part because of the complexity they’ve run into when growers claim medical status.

On both ballot choices, voters will decide whether to keep marijuana underground or in shopping centers.

“I don’t think that you sit there and you throw up your hands and say, ‘Because it’s such a difficult problem, we just legalize it and we don’t have to deal with it,’” Riedel said.